However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

Hope and fear are inseparable.

Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.

Self-love, as it happens to be well or ill conducted, constitutes virtue and vice.

The passions often engender their contraries.

Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.